


Larice in Paris

by zavegonzo



Category: Cognitive Dissonance - Fandom, MOTHER: Cognitive Dissonance
Genre: Crack, French, Gen, International Phonetic Alphabet, google translate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-04 05:15:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zavegonzo/pseuds/zavegonzo
Summary: Larice gets really lost and ends up in modern-day Paris.





	Larice in Paris

Perhaps Larice had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Maybe he took a right at that asteroid where he should have taken a left. Whatever mistake he made, Larice was sure the place he had ended up in wasn't Saturn. Saturn didn't have a bright blue sky, white clouds, or terrified humans running away from him at top speed. It looked like he was on Earth, but there was no way that was the case. Earth was surrounded by a barrier, impassable to outsiders.

All Larice was sure of was that he was completely lost, crash-landed in the middle of a city filled with humans. With nothing else to do, he started walking (or more accurately, hovering) down the streets, curiously looking around.

The street name signs were written in a strange language. The letters were familiar to Larice, but they formed completely foreign words sprinkled with apostrophes and diacritics.

In the distance was a large, A-shaped tower, which he could feel emitting signals encrypted in an unknown format.

Larice shrugged and decided to head towards the tower. Maybe he could use it somehow to find out where he was.

It was a fairly long, boring walk, occasionally punctuated by a human coming across him and then quickly heading in the other direction, usually screaming.

Eventually, he reached a large, flat plaza below the tower. It was crowded with humans, but that quickly changed as soon as they noticed Larice coming towards them.

It was loud as they all stampeded away. For a moment, Larice thought his internal microphone might get overloaded, but the noise quickly faded as the stampede shrank into the distance.

But there was still one human left, one with long hair, standing with a starstruck look on its face.

Larice approached it curiously.

"OUAH!" the human shouted. "Es-tu—er, Êtes-vous un Starman?!" Its words were incomprehensible, but the tone was clearly one of wonder.

Larice looked down at the human strangely. "Huh? I'm sorry, *beep* I don't understand."

The human held up a finger. "Puis-je te toucher?"

"I don't speak your—"

The human poked Larice quickly, like a Mook ineffectually tentastabbing a piece of steel ham. "Meep!" Larice meeped.

"Ahahahaha!" the human laughed. It brought its arms close to its body and seemed to hug itself. "J'ai touché un Starmaaan! Je suis la plus chanceusse fan d'Earthbound en Paris!"

The human turned back towards Larice. "D'où êtes-vous, Monsieur Starman? Quel est votre nom?"

"I don't know your language!" said Larice, holding up his arm-tentacles defensively.

"...Ah, bien sûr..." the human said, obviously disappointed.

The human pointed to itself. "Je suis Ghyslaine. Ghyyyyyysleeeeehne."

"Ghyslaine... That's your name? Ghyslaine?" Larice asked, gesturing at the human. _'It sounds sort of feminine,'_ he thought. _'So this human is a girl?'_

Ghyslaine nodded. She gestured to Larice. "Vous?"

"Me? I'm Larice. Laaariiice."

"Larice," Ghyslaine repeated. She smiled. "Ravi de vous recontrer, Larice!"

She held out her hand. Larice shook it. "Nice to *whirr* meet you too, Ghyslaine, if that's what you said."

Ghyslaine turned around and walked a couple paces. She turned around and made a beckoning gesture.

"Suivez-moi!"

Larice assumed that meant something like, "Follow me!"

He shrugged. "Sure," he said. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

The two of them started walking. They walked for a few minutes, Ghyslaine leading Larice through the twists and turns of the city streets, when they finally arrived at a building about 10 stories tall.

"Ceci est mon immeuble," Ghyslaine said as she opened the front door. She stood behind the door and bowed slightly. "Après vous."

Larice stepped inside, followed by Ghyslaine. He looked around. He was in a large, spacious foyer, which branched out into various halls.

Ghyslaine walked towards one of the hallways. "Par ici."

Larice followed Ghyslaine through the hallway, until they reached something that looked like a metal doorway with two panels. Next to it was a button with a design of an arrow facing upwards.

Ghyslaine pressed the button, and it lit up orange. She folded her arms and rested against the wall next to the doorway.

She looked up at Larice. "Je me demande si vous pouvez aller dans l'ascenseur..." she mumbled.

_Ding!_ A sound came from the doorway as the panels slid open, revealing a small chamber. Ghyslaine stepped inside.

Larice went inside, too. It was a bit cramped, but he could fit. He noticed a grid of buttons labeled with numbers on the interior wall, right next to the doorway.

"Vous pouvez," Ghyslaine said as she pressed the button labeled '4'.

The panels slid closed again. There was a subtle _clank_ , and the chamber started elevating.

_'Oh, this is an_ _elevator!'_ thought Larice. _'Do humans seriously still use elevators?_ _How quaint. We Starmen use the advanced technology of ladders!'_

 After a minute, the elevator stopped, and the doors opened.

Ghyslaine and Larice stepped out into a hallway. There were many doors with signs next to them, and under the signs were what looked like card scanners.

Ghyslaine pulled a card out of her pocket and strolled over to a door with a sign saying "404". She scanned the card, and the scanner beeped. She opened the door.

The two of them went through the door into a small space. "Bienvenu à mons appartement!" said Ghyslaine.

Larice looked around. To his left was a small couch, which Ghyslaine quickly sat on. In front of the couch was a wide table, and on top of the table was a device with a clamshell hinge.

To Larice's front was a hallway that led to a few closed doors.

To his right was a wall.

Ghyslaine reached to the device on the table and opened it up. It looked like a computer, with a screen, keyboard, and touchpad.

"On dirait que vous parlez anglais, voyons voir..."

She typed something with the keyboard and tapped on the small touchpad.

"Do you speak English?" an artificial female voice said.

"Huh?!" Larice uttered.

Ghyslaine typed some more. "I use an online translator," said the voice, "to translate from French to English."

"A translator...?" Larice repeated. _'That's sort of... neat. I never knew humans had machine translation.'_

"Tiens," Ghyslaine said, pushing the computer towards Larice.

Larice sat on the couch and looked at the computer hesitantly. The screen displayed a page with two boxes side by side. On the left was a white box with foreign text written in it, and on the right was a box with "I use an online translator to translate from French to English." written in it.

"Oh, un seconde." Ghyslaine leaned over and slid her finger over the touchpad. She moved an arrow-shaped cursor towards a symbol of two arrows between the boxes and then tapped the touchpad. The two boxes swapped contents. She highlighted the text in the white box and deleted it, leaving only a blinking line. "Voilà." She leaned back into her spot on the couch.

Larice looked over the keyboard. The layout was unfamiliar to him, but he managed to slowly peck the sentence "Yes I speak English" into the white box.

Ghyslaine hummed as she saw the translation appear in the gray box. She scooted back up to Larice and swapped the boxes again.

She typed something in French, and "Are you a Starman?" came up as the translation.

Larice had no mouth or eyebrows, but he would have frowned if he did. How did this human girl know about Starmen? He swapped the boxes one more time and typed, "I am. How do you know about Starmen?"

Ghyslaine typed some more French. "A video game called Earthbound."

Larice typed, "Really? Tell me more about this game."

"Near the beginning of the game, there is an encounter with an enemy Starman. The player has to battle him to progress. More enemy Starmen appear later in the game. I think the Ghosts of Starman look cool."

"So, Starmen are villains in this game?"

Ghyslaine shrugged and typed, "Yes."

Before Larice could type anything in response, she held up a finger and gazed at the gash in his chest.

She added, "Why do you have a cut on your chest?" and rested her arms in her lap.

Larice hesitated. He glanced between Ghyslaine and the computer. After a moment, he typed, "I got it from a bad person."

Ghyslaine looked at the translation and ruffled her brow. She typed, "A bad person?"

Larice typed, "I'd rather not talk about it."

Ghyslaine nodded. She typed, "That's alright."

Larice couldn't think of anything else to say. The two of them sat on the couch silently for a minute.

Larice turned around and looked out the window. The city looked different from this angle, so picturesque...

He realized he didn't know what the city was called.

Quickly, he turned around and typed, "What is the name of this city?"

Ghyslaine simply typed, "Paris."

"/pɛɹɪs/?" said Larice.

"Non," said Ghyslaine, "/paʁi/."

"Oh, /pəɹi/?" said Larice.

Ghyslaine shook her head. "Presque. /paʁi/!"

Larice put an arm-tentacle to the space under his visor. "/paɹi/."

"Meilleur... /paaaʁiii/. /ʁʁʁ/, /ʁʁi/."

Larice felt a bit frustrated. He had no idea how to make that guttural "ʁ" sound. "P... /pahi/!"

Ghyslaine giggled. "/pahi/?!"

Indignant, Larice typed into the translator, "I don't know how to make that sound!"

With a smile, Ghyslaine typed, "Let me teach you!"

She gestured at her throat. She typed, "When you do the 'G' sound, you do it from the back of your throat. You do the same with 'R', but you let it flow."

_ 'Flow?' _ thought Larice. _'What's she mean, "flow"?'_

"/pa/..." Larice mumbled. "/pag/... /g/... /ghhhhx/... /xh/... /ʁ ʁi/—"  


Larice gasped. "/ʁi/! I can say it! /paʁi/!"

"Très bien!" said Ghyslaine. "Paris!"

"Paris!" Larice pronounced proudly.

Ghyslaine giggled and typed, "Congratulations! You can pronounce Paris!"

Larice threw his arms in the air like he just didn't care and whirred in accomplishment. "Pariiiiiis!"

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse my lackluster French.  
> If you're wondering how Ghyslaine knows about Earthbound despite only speaking French, she played a fan translation.


End file.
